


melt me down, freeze me out

by southofzero



Category: The Killing
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-03-08 09:06:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13454997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/southofzero/pseuds/southofzero
Summary: He'd gotten that feeling from her the moment he met her, the unshakable notion that she could never settle down somewhere hot and quiet. She was ice-eyed and cold; a life like that would just melt her down into something else. Maybe that was what Mr. Sonoma wanted. A melted down version of the Sarah Linden he knew.





	melt me down, freeze me out

**Author's Note:**

> i listened to faunts on repeat and binged the first two season of the killing, and ended up with this. i've lingered on it long enough to justify publishing. kudos to lilysmum for the phrase 'linden blue'.

He liked to think he knew Linden.

He'd picked up some things along the way. She stopped smoking a year ago, after she caught Jack trying to light a cigarette on the gas stove. She got cold easy, but she didn't like how gloves complicated everything involving her hands. He'd never seen her with her hair down, not once. She said the rain made it feel like a wet blanket, and it was always raining in Seattle.

She didn't belong in California.

He'd gotten that feeling from her the moment he met her, the unshakable notion that she could never settle down somewhere hot and quiet. She was ice-eyed and cold; a life like that would just melt her down into something else. Maybe that was what Mr. Sonoma wanted. A melted down version of the Sarah Linden he knew.

Yeah, sometimes he knew Linden.

He knew she got angry instead of hurt. She'd kick him to the curb faster than she'd admit her feelings. She never martyred anyone, but she'd rip herself to pieces over a mistake. Somehow, that was worse.

She held grudges, teetered the line between a breakdown and stoicism ninety percent of the time, and got too caught up in herself to realize the world kept spinning in her absence.

And he knew somewhere in his burned-out hovel of a brain that she was the last person who could ever love him back.

Holder didn't mind that part too much.

\

For a while, Linden seemed untouchable. Above him.

He sees her there, faded in the window of the NA doors. She's a smudged form in the glass, ready to drop him and send him tumbling onto his ass. A fall from grace, only he was the farthest thing from holy.

She doesn't, though. They don't discuss it.

\

He learns better.

He comes back for her, he sticks around, he learns to gauge the tilt of her mouth and the way she looks when she's thinking. He holds her back as they skid down the embankment, down towards a kid that's not hers.

'It's not him, Linden. It's not him,' he tells her, grabbing her arms, and he remembers that no-one is untouchable. Not even Linden.

"Kick his ass," he tells her, later, in the hallway of that shitty motel.

"No doubt," she replies, and her smile makes everything worth it, just for a moment.

\

Monarchs. She was hunting for monarchs. Rosie Larson, the girl with dark hair and lungs full of lakewater.

She finds him first. The dead girl plagues him like a sickness he can't shake, blue eyes and warm hands.

(Rosie Larsen's eyes were brown.)

The pain ripples across his collarbone, fluttering like wings as someone tugs down his shirt, and he hears someone bark an order for a stretcher.

(Rosie Larson's hands were cold as death.)

"Holder," a voice says, and his thoughts go copper-red before he drifts away again.

\

He wakes up later, gasping a breath that jolts every single bone in his abused ribcage. His sister is there, looming over him.

"They can't give you anything," she says apologetically, "because... you know."

He knows. Junkies don't get the good stuff. He might get a hospital-dose of aspirin if he's lucky.

"Yeah," he rasps back. "No hard feelings."

He remembers the matches -- _Tomorrow 11 a.m_ \-- and reaches for his pocket. Shit. His side screams as he rolls over to look at the hospital chairs, and he grits his teeth. "My jeans. I need my clothes."

"You're not leaving," Liz says sharply, and he shakes his head. The room spins on a dizzy axis around him, like the mobile above a crib.

"No, no --" He takes another breath and tries to blink away the spotty blackness in his peripherals. His sister falters by the foot of his bed, glancing out into the hallway for help, and he reaches for her hand. "The matchbox. Give it to Linden." Her hand is cool, smooth. "The matches, give them to her. Please, Liz."

"Fine." Liz pushes him gently back into the pillows and pulls her fingers from his limp grasp. "Fine."

He passes out.

\

He dreams of blue.

It's a specific shade, pale and cold in its intensity. Nearly destructive.

She hovers over him, her fingers finding the line of his jaw, and his thoughts roll away with the tide.

Linden blue, he thinks. The color of the sea in a storm.


End file.
